


All My Sons

by Polomonkey



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Canon Era, Captivity, Episode Related, Episode: s04e12-13 The Sword in the Stone, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Survivor Guilt, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 17:09:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5635066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polomonkey/pseuds/Polomonkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Both Elyan and Gaius are survivors. Both hate themselves for it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All My Sons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ArgentSleeper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArgentSleeper/gifts), [harlequin (julie)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/julie/gifts).



> I asked for prompts for my 'survivor's guilt' square of hurt/comfort bingo and these two were kind enough to direct me towards the cell scenes in The Sword in the Stone after Morgana has tortured Elyan. Thanks for the awesome prompt guys!

Elyan dreams of his father. Those first two days in the cell he’s catatonic, the torture leaving him scraped clean and empty inside. He doesn’t feel the hunger then, or the cold, or the fear. He just dreams.

He’s running in the fields aged five and his father plucks him up and into the air, swings him round until he’s dizzy.

He’s at the forge aged fifteen and his father’s teaching him how to smelt tin.

He’s seventeen and he’s shouting _I hate you, I’m leaving, I’ll never come back._

His father standing stock still, hands hanging loose, eyes red and wet.

_Go if you must. I’ll be here when you return._

Only he wasn’t, of course. Elyan came back too late.

On the third day he wakes up calling his father’s name and a quiet voice shushes him, a gentle hand strokes through his hair.

“Dad?” he mumbles.

“Easy, now.”

It’s not his father’s voice but it is his father standing over him, how could it not be? He wouldn’t leave Elyan in pain like this, wouldn’t let him suffer alone.

Elyan reaches out and his father smiles. His faces ripples, distorts. Vanishes. Gaius is stood in his place.

“Dad…” Elyan says, tears welling in his eyes. Struck anew by grief and longing. Why isn’t his father here, when Elyan needs him so badly?

“It’s alright, my boy,” Gaius says. “I’m with you. It’s alright.”

“Dad,” Elyan sobs out, and turns away.

 

***

 

It isn’t until he comes back to himself that he remembers what he did.

“Gaius…” he says, stricken. “I told… I told her where Arthur was.”

“It’s alright, Elyan,” Gaius says calmly.

“No I-I told her. I doomed us all. I killed the King.”

“Elyan.”

Gaius reaches out to take his hand between his own.

“You are not to blame. The bite of the Nathair is unendurable. You did exceptionally to withstand it for so long; few can.”

Elyan shakes his head, his vision blurring.

“I doomed us all,” he whispers.

“No. Arthur will find a way. He is with Merlin. They’ll keep each other safe.”

“He’s right,” Gwaine says from the side of the cell. “The Princess’ll come storming back here any minute, berating us for lazing around when there’s a war on.”

Elyan laughs once and then he begins to cry. Gaius moves to hold him, arms as strong and warm around him as his father’s were long ago.

I’m sorry Arthur, Elyan thinks. I’m sorry dad. _I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry._

 

***

 

Gaius sickens. 

Gwaine prowls around the cell; furious and afraid. Elyan sits with Gaius, tells him stories, holds his hand. He becomes the parent now; he comforts the ailing child.

When Morgana comes and takes Gwaine away, Elyan’s too weak to make any protest. He hates himself for that, and he hates himself more when the bread they get is barely enough to feed one.

“You can’t go again,” he tells Gwaine, dabbing at his cut lip with a scrap of cloth.

“Don’t reckon I’ll get a choice,” Gwaine says, and he smiles. It’s not a real smile, not the kind that splits Gwaine’s face and crinkles his eyes, but it’s the best he can do and Elyan offers up a smile of his own.

“Whatever we get, we give to Gaius,” Gwaine says.

Elyan nods and thinks of the time supplies were short in Camelot and his father went without supper three times a week so he and Gwen could eat. What seventeen year old remembers that, when they’re furious and trapped and shouting at the only parent they’ve ever known? It’s later they remember. It’s later they mourn.

 

***

 

Elyan does struggle the next few times Gwaine is taken, but it does no good. He watches his friend come and go, watches the light die in his eyes, watches him bleed and rage and fight and break.

Gaius is dying. He won’t take the last of the bread, he won’t take anything. 

“Why won’t you eat?” Elyan whispers into the darkness one night, when Gwaine has passed out and the only sound is the ragged heave of Gaius’ breath.

“I fear it is my time,” Gaius says slowly.

“It isn’t. We need you. Camelot needs you.”

Gaius sighs.

“You are kind, Elyan. But I do not think I can make you understand how it feels to see a child that you loved, a child that you helped raise and care for, turn into a creature of hate and fear before your very eyes.”

“But Morgana-”

“I failed Morgana. I’ve failed many in my time.”

Gaius’ voice cracks a little.

“I cannot dream but for seeing their faces in my sleep. The ones whom I did not help. The ones whom I could not save.”

Elyan draws a deep shaky breath.

“So many faces. I am driven mad sometimes, Elyan. So you ask me why I do not eat and I say: it is not for me to take food from you and Gwaine when there is barely enough for one. I do not wish to survive at the expense of others anymore.”

Elyan pushes his hand into his mouth, tries to stifle the sob that threatens. There is such pity in Gaius’ voice, and such shame too. He has rarely felt such kin with another being before this moment and it compels him to speak his worst secret out loud.

“I left my father. And then he died and I was not here. Not here to save him, not here to bury him, not here to mourn him.”

He’s suddenly lying at Gaius’ side, he barely felt himself moving. He’s clutching the physician’s hand; he wants comfort, he wants redemption, oh won’t somebody redeem him.

Gaius reaches out a hand to card through Elyan’s hair.

“I knew your father,” he says softly. “He talked of you with great pride, even after you’d gone. He loved you with all his heart, Elyan, and he will have forgiven your mistakes.” 

“But I cannot forgive myself,” Elyan chokes out and prays that Gaius does not try to persuade him otherwise. But this time Gaius only sighs.

“Yes. I understand, my boy. I understand.”

And he presses the briefest of kisses to Elyan’s lips. It’s the closest thing to mercy Elyan can find in the darkness, and he’s grateful for it.

All they can do is carry on living. And perhaps survival will bring redemption, Elyan thinks. 

Or at least he hopes that’s so.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading :)


End file.
